In blizzard-like conditions, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying two cosmonauts and a NASA astronauts on a two-day flight to the International Space Station.

Two-and-a-half months after a dramatic launch failure, Russian engineers ready a closely inspected Soyuz spacecraft for launch to the space station, the program's first manned flight in the post-shuttle era.